Research project at Debrecen

aqueous
organometallic catalysis:

The
use of carbon dioxide as c1 building block

In
this program, the group will mainly develop the following project:

Carbon dioxide is an abundant greenhouse gas which could be an important
C1 building block provided its catalytic fixation into larger organic molecules
could be widely realized in synthetic systems. However, in most cases,
hydrogenation of CO2 provides formic acid or its salts, although examples
of hydroformylation of olefins, formylation of N-heterocycles and formation of
lactones in the reaction of dienes with CO2/H2 mixtures are known. Based on our experience on CO2 hydrogenation with Rh- and Ru-phosphine-type catalysts we wish to
catalyze the incorporation of carbon dioxide into olefins in aqueous solutions
or in aqueous-organic biphasic systems. An integrated part of the project
involves the synthesis of new water-soluble transition metal complexes, their
structural characterization (IR, NMR, MS, single crystal X-Ray, etc.) and the
determination of their acid-base properties by pH-potentiometry. In this research
we also plan to study catalysts formed by the new hydrosoluble ligands
developed by our partners. Experience in inorganic/organometallic synthesis
and/or catalysis is desirable.